Last May, Calp Town Council agreed with the GAMASER laboratory, Global Omnium (which includes Aguas de Calpe -the waterworks-), to carry out a series of wastewater samples that will allow the implementation of a method for epidemiological surveillance through the analysis of wastewater. The aim is to know the presence, concentration and evolution of genomic units of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, which causes the disease COVID-19.
Since then, Aguas de Calpe has been regularly taking samples at key points in the wastewater network to know and analyse the presence of Covid in the wastewater. These analyses, together with the guidelines of the regional Ministry of Health, are what have made it possible to adjust the restrictions in the municipality. The latest analyses show a significant decrease in Covid 19 in Calp, even with days with 0 values.
This initiative of water analysis has no cost for the City Council, as Global Omnium, in order to contribute to the containment of the pandemic, has covered the cost of the project.
The analyses will be carried out using SARS-GOAnalytics, a pioneering method - validated by IATA-CSIC (Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) - capable of quantifying the number of genomic units of the COVID 19-causing virus present per litre of water, thus providing the curve of the epidemic after sampling and analysis.
Its methodology makes it possible to anticipate some of the indicators used and to cross-check the data with other data collected by the health service to add information and obtain a more perfect picture of the progression or decline of the pandemic.
By taking samples and analysing the wastewater, we can have an "early warning system to calculate and control the occurrence of new outbreaks of COVID in our cities in real time for different sections," Global Omnium said.
As they explained, the coronavirus leaves a genetic trace (RNA) that remains in the body of the infected for 20 days: "This RNA is excreted through faeces and urine, so it enters the sanitary networks from the first day of infection, even if the patient does not even have symptoms or knows that he is infected, that is, asymptomatic".
Therefore, thanks to the system developed by Gamaser (Global Omnium) and verified by CSIC, "we can monitor how the pandemic is behaving at a generic level - incoming sanitation systems - where population areas are draining, and what is particularly relevant at the moment: we can investigate and control at the level of small populations or even at the level of neighbourhoods," he stressed.